Several claude, codex and gh accounts

You may hold two subscriptions of the same CLI, for example a personal one and a work one. Karajan does not need its own setting for that. Each CLI already has a variable that chooses which account it uses, and Karajan follows it:

CLI	Variable	Default
Claude Code	CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR	~/.claude.json and ~/.claude
Codex	CODEX_HOME	~/.codex
GitHub CLI	GH_CONFIG_DIR	~/.config/gh

Whatever runs inside a session inherits those variables: kj review, the git hooks, the Sentinel, the MCP server and kj code. The cross-AI reviewer then works with the codex account of that session, and kj looks for each CLI’s login and config in the same place.

Set up a second account

The names below are only an example (work); use any name you like.

1. Pick one folder per account, for example ~/.claude-work, ~/.codex-work and ~/.config/gh-work.

2. Start the work session with the three variables. An alias in your shell profile does it:

   alias claude-work='CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR=$HOME/.claude-work CODEX_HOME=$HOME/.codex-work GH_CONFIG_DIR=$HOME/.config/gh-work claude'
   alias codex-work='CODEX_HOME=$HOME/.codex-work codex'

3. For gh, make a small command instead of an alias, so it also works in the non-interactive shells agents run commands in. Save it as ~/.local/bin/gh-work and make it executable (chmod 755):

   #!/usr/bin/env sh
   GH_CONFIG_DIR="$HOME/.config/gh-work" exec gh "$@"

4. Log codex and gh in once with the work account:

   CODEX_HOME=$HOME/.codex-work codex login
   gh-work auth login

5. Open a new terminal (so the alias exists) and start claude-work in the work project.

With one gh config per account there is no shared “active account”: gh auth switch is no longer needed, and no session can switch the account another one is using. Keep only the personal account in the default ~/.config/gh.

Sessions started with plain claude keep using the default accounts. Sessions that were already open keep the variables they started with, so restart them after changing the alias.

Check which account reviews

When the variable moves the account, kj review --staged names it on the reviewer line:

kj review: host=claude → reviewer=codex (cross-AI) [CODEX_HOME=/home/you/.codex-work]

With the default account the bracket does not appear. kj doctor also checks the codex config of the selected account ($CODEX_HOME/config.toml).

The GitHub account kj uses

When several gh accounts share one config, the active one is shared by every session, and another session can switch it while kj is running. So kj does not use it (one config per account, as above, avoids the problem altogether): at startup it takes the token of the repo’s account (gh auth token --user <account>) and every gh it runs uses that one. The account is the owner of the origin remote (git@github.com:you/repo.git → you), provided gh has it logged in. For a repo owned by an organization, name the account in .karajan/kj.config.yml:

review:
  github_account: you-work

A GH_TOKEN or GITHUB_TOKEN already set (CI, for instance) is always respected. If the configured account is not logged in to gh, kj warns and uses the active one.

Good to know

• A long-running process keeps the account of the session that started it. If you start kj board start from a personal session, whatever the board launches uses the personal accounts.
• The second codex account starts with codex’s defaults: no model, MCP servers or trusted projects from the first one. kj review does not need any of them.
• The same works without aliases: export both variables in your shell profile, in a .envrc, or in your terminal’s profile for that project.